Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
09/08/17 Update:

I read the other day that Governor Kenneth Mapp of the U.S. Virgin Islands signed an emergency order that allows the territorial government to seize private guns and ammunition and any other private property the National Guard may deem necessary to respond to Hurricane Irma.

I read where the City Council of Lincoln, Nebraska has proposed an “anti-hate” resolution. It says that the City of Lincoln recognizes “values” and will proactively work to promote diversity and inclusion within our community.

Really? What values? Does the City Council have a right to tell individual citizens what to feel? What to say? How to think? What if a pastor preaches against homosexuality in a Sunday Sermon from a pulpit in a Lincoln Church? Will the City work to “promote diversity and inclusion” to respect everyone’s convictions and beliefs, or will the pastor be branded as “intolerant” by the city? Will the City Council condemn the vulgar attacks against UNL Sophomore Kaitlyn Mullen last week when she tried to recruit for a conservative student organization on campus? Is she worthy of inclusion?

Does the City Council realize there is NO SUCH THING as “hate speech” in America, that promoting such a falsehood is nothing more than an attack on our 1st Amendment rights? No one has a right to not be offended. If you don’t like what someone says or how they think, move on. Ignore them. Don’t try and silence the bigots, let them speak. Let their bogus ideas be laid bare for all to see. Let their beliefs compete in the arena of public opinion and be cast upon the ash heap of failed ideas after full and fair debate.

I saw where Oregon Gov. Kate Brown approved gun control legislation that would force people to surrender their firearms.

This law allows the police, or a member of a subject’s family or household, to file a petition with the local court which could then issue an order prohibiting someone from firearms possession if the court believed they posed an imminent risk to themselves or others. The person then has 30 days to request a hearing to get back the firearms confiscated from them, assuming a judge agrees. Otherwise they lose them for a year.

A person does not have to commit a crime and be arrested to lose their 2nd Amendment rights in Oregon. A judge simply has to “think” they shouldn’t be allowed to have them. No arrest. No charge. No trial. No jury. No due-process, just one person’s opinion who has no idea who this person being deprived of their rights really is. Demanding that one’s fellow citizens be degraded and stripped of their most basic constitutional rights is tyranny, plain and simple. I hope the US Supreme Court swiftly reverses this oppression.

Why is the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution the only amendment to the constitution the people need to get permission from the government to exercise? Did you need to get permission to read this newspaper, or did the 1st Amendment protect your right to do so?

What do these three stories have in common? A total lack of respect for constitutional republicanism.

We are a Constitutional Republic. We have inalienable, individual rights in that republic. We are Americans. Our country is built upon the sovereignty of the individual, and upon the rule of law that form the basis for a civil society. Each day, examples like these show me the relentless march of progressive elitism leading a counter-revolution to wreck our country. Every day is another example of our country drifting farther away from it’s founding principles, unmoored from our Constitution, slipping closer to the tyranny of rule by a privileged few masterminds. The examples of mob rule we’ve seen in the news lately and the never-ending drumbeat of political correctness to silence free speech sickens me.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov or call us at (402) 471-2628.